Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).

• 

Daily life as we know it has grinded to a halt and crop scientists are pondering next steps in face of the global COVID-19 crisis. Hans Braun, Director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, joins us for a virtual chat to discuss the need for increased investment in crop disease research as the world risks a food security crisis. 

What have you learned from your work on contagious wheat diseases that we can take away during this time?

Wheat epidemics go back to biblical times. Wheat scientists now believe Egypt’s “seven bad years” of harvest referenced in the Bible were due to a stem rust outbreak.

So, we know what happens when we have a crop epidemic: diseases can completely wipe out a harvest. I have seen subsistence farmers stand in front of their swaying, golden wheat fields, but there is not a single grain inside the spikes. All because of wheat blast.

There are a lot of parallel issues that I see with COVID-19.

The epidemiology models for humans which we see now have a lot in common with plant epidemiology. For example, if you take a wheat field sown with a variety which is rust-resistant and then you get a spore which mutates and overcomes the resistance — like COVID 19 overcomes the human immune system — it then takes about two weeks for it to sporulate again and produce millions of these mutated spores. They sporulate once more and then you have billions and trillions of spores — then the wheat fields at the local, national and, in the worst case, regional level are severely damaged and in worst case are going to die.

The problem is that since we cannot quarantine wheat, if the weather is favorable these spores will fly everywhere and — just like with COVID-19 — they don’t need a passport to travel.

Could you elaborate on that? How can wheat diseases go global?

Usually it takes around 5 years, sometimes less, until a mutation in a rust spore can overcome the resistance of a wheat variety. Every so often, we see rust epidemics which cover an entire region. To monitor this movement, the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative of Cornell University and CIMMYT, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and DFID, established a global rust monitoring system that provides live data on spore movements.

For example, if you have a new race of stem rust in Yemen — and in Yemen wheat matures early — and then farmers burn the straw, their action “pushes” the spores up into the air, thus allowing them to enter the jet stream and cover 2,000 to 5,000 kilometers in a short period of time. Spores can also be carried on clothes or shoes by people who walked into an infected wheat field. Take Australia, for example, which has very strict quarantine laws. It is surrounded by sea and still eventually they get the new rust races which fly around or come with travelers. One just cannot prevent it.

• 

Could climate change exacerbate the spreading of crop diseases?

Yes, the climate and its variability have a lot to do with it. For example, in the case of yellow rust, what’s extremely important is the time it takes from sporulation to sporulation. Take a rust spore. It germinates, then it grows, it multiplies and then once it is ready it will disperse and infect wheat plants. From one dispersal to the next it takes about two weeks.

In the last decades, in particular for yellow rust, new races are better adapted to high temperature and are multiplying faster. In a Nature paper, we showed that 30 years ago yellow rust was not present in the Great Plains in the US. Today, it is the most important wheat disease there. So there really is something going on and changing and that’s why we are so concerned about new wheat disease races when they come up.

What could an epidemiologist specialized in human viruses take from this?

Well, I think human epidemiologists know very well what happens in a case like COVID-19. Ordinary citizens now also start to understand what a pandemic is and what its related exponential growth means.

Maybe you should ask what policymakers can learn from COVID-19 in order to prevent plant epidemics. When it comes to epidemics, what applies to humans applies to plants. If there is a new race of a given crop disease, in that moment, the plant does not have a defense mechanism, like humans in the case of COVID-19, because we haven’t developed any immunity. While in developed countries farmers can use chemicals to control plant diseases, resource-poor farmers do not have this option, due to lack to access or if the plant protective has not been registered in their country.

In addition to this, our lines of work share a sense of urgency. If “doomsday” happens, it will be too late to react. At present, with a human pandemic, people are worried about the supply chain from food processing to the supermarket. But if we have an epidemic in plants, then we do not have the supply chain from the field to the food processing industry. And if people have nothing to eat, they will go to the streets and we will see violence. We simply cannot put this aside.

What other lessons can policymakers and other stakeholders take away from the current crisis?

The world needs to learn that we cannot use economics as the basis for disease research. We need to better foresee what could happen.

Let’s take the example of wheat blast, a devastating disease that can destroy the wheat spike and was initially confined to South America. The disease arrived in Bangladesh in 2016 and caused small economic damage, maybe 30,000 tons loss in a small geographic area — a small fraction of the national production but a disaster for the smallholder farmer, who thus would have lost her entire wheat harvest. The disease is now controlled with chemicals. But what if chemical resistance is developed and the disease spreads to the 10 million hectares in the Indo Gangetic Plains of India and the south of Pakistan. Unlikely? But what if it happens?

Agriculture accounts for 30% of the global GDP and the research money [going to agriculture] in comparison to other areas is small. Globally only 5% of R&D is invested in research for development related to agriculture. Such a discrepancy! A million U.S. dollars invested in wheat blast research goes a long way and if you don’t do it, you risk a disaster.

If there is any flip side to the COVID-19 disaster, it is that hopefully our governments realize that they have to play a much more serious role in many areas, in particular public health and disease control in humans but also in plants.

A Lloyd’s report concluded that a global food crisis could be caused by governments taking isolating actions to protect their own countries in response to a breadbasket failure elsewhere. I’m concerned that as the COVID-19 crisis continues, governments will stop exports as some did during the 2008 food price crisis, and then, even if there is enough food around, the 2008 scenario might happen again and food prices will go through the roof, with disastrous impact on the lives of the poorest.

This article and video were originally published on the CIMMYT website.

The wheat curl mite, a pesky wheat pest which can cause up to 100% yield losses, is a significant threat to wheat crops worldwide. The pest has been confirmed in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and parts of South America. Almost invisible to the naked eye, the microscopic pest is one of the most difficult pests to manage in wheat due to its ability to evade insecticides.

We caught up with Punya Nachappa, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, at this year’s International Plant Resistance to Insects (IPRI) Workshop to discuss wheat curl mites and how to fight them. She explains how the mite cleverly avoids insecticides, how climate change is leading to increasing populations and why breeding for host plant resistance is the main defense against outbreaks.

This post by Alfonso Cortés and Emma Orchardson was originally published on the CIMMYT website.

When asked to picture a food made of whole grains, your first thought might be a loaf of brown, whole-wheat bread. But wholegrain dishes come in all forms.

Take a virtual journey around the world to see the popular or surprising ways in which whole grains are eaten from Mexico to Bangladesh.

This article and video were originally published on the CIMMYT website.

Insect resistance in plants is needed now more than ever. The UN, which has named 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health, estimates that almost 40% of food crops are lost annually due to plant pests and diseases.

Earlier this month, a group of wheat breeders and entomologists came together for the 24th Biannual International Plant Resistance to Insects (IPRI) Workshop, held at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

We caught up with Mustapha El-Bouhssini, principal scientist at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to discuss insect pests and climate change. He explains how pests such as the Hessian fly — a destructive wheat pest which resembles a mosquito — and the chickpea pod borer are extending their geographical ranges in response to rising temperatures.

This article was originally posted on the CGIAR website.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread rapidly. Since its start in China in December, the outbreak has spread to more than 100 countries, endangering the health and livelihoods of millions. To contain the pandemic, many cities and regions across the world have been shut down, putting a halt to day-to-day activities.

As Western economies struggle with difficult decisions – it is those in the global South that are most at risk. Economies that are dependent on tourism, trade and foreign investment have fewer options at their disposal.

An urgent and coordinated global response is needed – from the global to the local level to protect populations – and especially the most vulnerable. Food security is fragile under normal circumstances and must not be ignored as part of a One Health strategy.

CGIAR, as the world’s largest public research network on food systems, provides evidence to help understand and address threats to food and nutrition security from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as:

• The food system has been significantly affected, and these impacts will grow if processing enterprises cannot restart production in a near future;
• Production of staple food crops such as wheat, rice, and vegetables will be affected if the outbreak continues into critical planting periods;
• Domestic and international trade disruptions may trigger food price panics;
• Restrictions on mobility may lead to labor shortages.

CGIAR will make available its latest research and analysis on COVID-19 to support authorities and the public in making informed decisions during the current crisis. In the research and news featured below, CGIAR scientists provide evidence-based advice and recommendations on:

• Introducing enabling policies for spring planting and increasing support for production entities;
• Ensuring the smooth flow of trade and making full use of the international market as a vital tool to secure food supply and demand;
• Ensuring smooth logistical operations of regional agricultural and food supply chains;
• Monitoring food prices and strengthening market supervision;
• Protecting vulnerable groups and providing employment services to migrant workers;
• Regulating wild food markets to curb the source of the disease;
• Measuring impact on small and medium-sized businesses;
• Analyzing how much global poverty will increase because of COVID-19.

This story by Emma Orchardson was originally published on the CIMMYT website.

International agricultural research has come a long way since the Green Revolution of the 1970s – from a tight focus on crop improvement to a wider quest for sustainable food systems. Our original objective, as the founders of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other CGIAR Research Centers were fond of saying, was to increase the pile of grain. Now, we strive to achieve food and nutritional security in ways that also enhance rural livelihoods, reduce environmental degradation, and boost agriculture´s resilience. 

In 2009, state governments in Northwest India implemented a policy designed to reduce groundwater extraction by prohibiting the usual practice of planting rice in May and moving it to June, nearer the start of monsoon rains.

Although the policy did succeed in alleviating pressure on groundwater, it also had the unexpected effect of worsening already severe air pollution. The reason for this, according to a recent study published in Nature Sustainability, is that the delay in rice planting narrowed the window between rice harvest and sowing of the subsequent crop — mainly wheat — leaving farmers little time to remove rice straw from the field and compelling them to burn it instead.

Even though burning crop residues is prohibited in India, uncertainty about the implementation of government policy and a perceived lack of alternatives have perpetuated the practice in Haryana and Punjab states, near the nation’s capital, New Delhi, where air pollution poses a major health threat.

Decades of research for development have enabled researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other partners to identify potential solutions to this problem.

One particularly viable option focuses on the practice of zero tillage, in which wheat seed is sown immediately after rice harvest through the rice straw directly into untilled soil with a single tractor pass.

In a new blog published as part of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Field Notes series, CIMMYT scientists Hans Braun and Bruno Gerard discuss the combination of agronomic and breeding conditions required to make zero tillage work, and propose a fundamental shift away from current incentives to maximize the region´s cereal production.

This op-ed by Martin Kropff, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, was originally published by SciDevNet.

Last year, droughts devastated staple food crops across the developing world, cutting production by about half in some countries. A stream of reports from Central America, Eastern and Southern Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific region painted a grim picture of suffering and upheaval.

Poor harvests subjected tens of millions to chronic hunger, prompting various governments to declare states of emergency. In Central America, survey results, including some from the US government, cited climate-induced food shortages as the main reason for emigration from drought-hit areas.

Extreme weather, with its appalling consequences, demands an extraordinary response. Redoubled efforts must focus on building resilience into the developing world´s major food systems.

Fortunately, agricultural science has already provided a wide range of solutions and continues to generate more.

Conservation agriculture and drought-tolerant crops

New technologies from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) suggest how developing countries can work toward a better future.

Drought-tolerant cereals show promise for helping stabilise maize and wheat production. Through many years of conventional plant breeding, researchers have developed more than 160 maize varieties for sub-Saharan Africa that yield 25-30 percent more than farmers’ standard varieties under drought, while performing at least equal to these under normal rainfall.

According to a study in Zimbabwe, farmers growing the drought-tolerant maize harvested up to 600 kilograms more grain per hectare in drought years – enough to feed a family of six for nine months. The improved varieties are already grown on 2.5 million hectares, benefitting around 54 million people. Researchers are also poised to develop wheat lines with tolerance to drought and heat, having identified genes for these traits though cutting-edge collaborative science.

“Extreme weather, with its appalling consequences, demands an extraordinary response. Fortunately, agricultural science has already provided a wide range of solutions and continues to generate more.”

Martin Kropff, director general, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

To provide maximum benefits, drought-tolerant crop varieties need to form part of smart farming systems that capture and conserve moisture. One such system – conservation agriculture – combines diverse crops with reduced or no ploughing, and the practice of leaving stalks and other crop residues on the ground after harvest. Already widely applied in South America´s Southern Cone, this system has also made inroads in the predominant rice-wheat system of South Asia´s Indo-Gangetic Plain, a major breadbasket for the region. Conservation agriculture is being widely promoted in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico and elsewhere.

Globally, around 80 per cent of food production depends on increasingly erratic rainfall. To ensure better water supplies, many farmers have purchased their own small pumps for irrigation, often using water from aquifers underground.  One drawback to this practice is that it can lead to groundwater depletion, which is already a serious problem in Northwest India, for example. In searching for solutions, researchers there have recently shown how farmers can grow just as much rice and wheat using only about half the water normally needed, through conservation agriculture combined with the use of a drip irrigation system that delivers just the right amount of water, plus fertiliser to crop roots through underground pipes.

Scaling-up drought solutions

The challenge now is to mainstream the growing portfolio of drought solutions – a task demanding not only technical acumen, but institutional vision.
Partnerships between private seed companies and public crop breeding programs, for example, played a vital role in getting drought-tolerant maize into farmers’ fields. But the people benefitting from this innovation today still constitute only a fraction of the 300 million Africans whose diets depend on maize. Clearly, such partnerships must be expanded.

Innovation platforms are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for refining and scaling out more complicated innovations, such as conservation agriculture. Transitioning to new production practices can be a daunting experience for farmers, especially smallholders. By bringing together networks of farmers, extension specialists, researchers, private companies and policymakers, innovation platforms offer the knowledge, services and products needed for change.

In order for improved technologies to have the desired effect, government and partner organisations must get their policies and decisions right. Recent research in Bangladesh, for example, has identified new policy measures for enhancing the efficiency of irrigation services. In addition, organisations must base their decisions and planning before and during droughts on information from new systems that use remote sensing and climate data analysis for drought monitoring and early warning.

Science-based climate projections tell us that drought will become even worse in the decades ahead. Only by implementing drought solutions on an unprecedented scale, will countries be able to avoid a future that leaves millions of people at the mercy of a hostile climate.

The CGIAR Research Program on Wheat and its lead center, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Mexico, are responding to the threat of COVID-19 and taking measures to ensure our worldwide staff is as safe as possible.  While we adjust to the “new normal” of social distancing, temperature checks and quarantines, we will continue to perform field and desk research as best we can, and share our progress and findings with you through our website, newsletter, and Facebook page.

At times such as this, we step back and remember the vision that brings us all here: a world free of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation. We would not be able pursue this vision without your support.

We hope you, your colleagues and loved ones stay safe and healthy. We are all in this together and we look forward to continuing our conversation.

Latest COVID-19 news:

Crossing boundaries: looking at wheat diseases in times of the COVID-19 crisis

Community celebrates nearly 50 years of achievements; highlights ways to meet future challenges

It was 1974.  In the United States, the environmental movement was in full swing, with the first celebration of Earth Day, the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the publication of Rachel Carson’s revolutionary book, Silent Spring. Around the world, the public was gaining awareness of the danger of overuse of pesticides, as a small group of crop breeders and entomologists decided to get together in what would become the first International Plant Resistance to Insects (IPRI) workshop.

Today, the need for insect resistance is even greater. The UN, which has named 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health, estimates that almost 40% of food crops are lost annually due to plant pests and diseases. The losses due to insects total up to $1billion a year for wheat alone.  Climate change is another factor affecting the population and geographical distribution of pests.

Last week, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) hosted IPRI’s 24^th biannual session, convening entomologists, pathologists, breeders and nematologists to validate past work and highlight innovative solutions.  To name a few:

• South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council has developed 43 new cultivars of wheat that are resistant to Russian Wheat Aphid.
• CIMMYT precision scientists are using high-tech cameras on drones or planes to measure individual plants for signs of biotic stress, to allow farmers advance notice of infestation.
• North Dakota State University’s mapping of the Hessian Fly H26 gene has revealed two clear phenotypic responses to Hessian fly attacks, bringing breeders a step closer towards developing resistant wheat varieties.
• CIMMYT-designed Integrated Pest Management (IPM) packages are helping farmers from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and cropping systems effectively fight the devastating maize pest fall armyworm through a combination of best management practices.

A recurring theme was the importance of collaboration between entomologists and breeders to ensure breakthroughs in resistance genes are taken up to develop new varieties that reach farmers.

“There is a disconnect between screening and breeding,” CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director Hans Braun told attendees.  “We need more and better collaboration between disciplines, to move from screening to breeding faster.”

Communicating to farmers is crucial. Pesticides are expensive, harmful to both human health and the environment, and can lead to crop resistance.  However, they can appear to be the quick and easy solution. “IPM also means ‘integrating people’s mindsets,’” said B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program.

National policies instituting strict quarantines pose another serious barrier to the exchange of seeds required for testing and research.

To mark the workshop’s 24^th anniversary, Michael Smith, entomologist at Kansas State University and longtime IPRI participant, offered a brief history of the event and the field—from the first insect-resistant wheat developed in the early 1920s to the wake-up call of pesticide abuse in the 1960s.

“We’ve grown, we’ve made enormous technological changes, but ‘talking to people’ is still what we’re here for,” he stated. He added a challenge for his colleagues:  “We need to tell a better story of the economic benefits of our science. We need to get to the table in an even more assertive way.”

He also shared some lighter memories, such as the sight of imminent plant scientists relaxing in leisure suits at the 1978 session. A traditional mariachi serenade and traditional Mexican cuisine ensured that more memories were made in 2020.

Leonardo Crespo-Herrera, CIMMYT wheat breeder and workshop moderator closed with encouraging and provocative words for the group.

 “The ultimate objective is to reduce the use of pesticides,” he said, adding: “How do we get this research out of the lab and into the field?”

This op-ed by Dr. Nteranya Sanginga from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), featuring research by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), was originally published by Thomson Reuters Foundation News.

A perfect storm of conditions led to the locust attack currently tearing through East Africa and Pakistan, where countries are deploying pesticides, military personnel and even ducks.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has given the ultimatum of March to bring Africa’s desert locust outbreak under control, calling for US$76 million to fund insecticide spraying.

But the ongoing outbreak is only the latest example of the devastation that crop pests can cause – there are tens of thousands more that farmers have to contend with, from diseases and fungi to weeds and insects.

And with such a variety of threats to harvests and yields, there is no silver bullet to protect against losses and damage. Rather, an integrated approach is needed that incorporates all available tools in the toolbox, from better forecasting and monitoring technologies to the controlled spraying of crops with biocontrol products, all supported by stronger partnerships.

Smallholder farmers are on the frontline when a pest outbreak takes hold. A small swarm of desert locusts can eat the equivalent food of 35,000 people per day, for example, while crop losses resulting from the spread of fall armyworm across sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to cost up to $6.1 billion a year.

Yet while their livelihoods are most at risk, smallholders can also play a significant part in tackling crop pests like the desert locust.

By giving farmers access to better surveillance technology that enables them to monitor pests and forecast potential outbreaks, infestations can be tracked and managed effectively.

A project in Bangladesh that helps farmers to deal with fall armyworm is one example of how this can be done effectively. Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the initiative has trained hundreds of farmers and extension agents in identifying, monitoring and tackling infestations using combined approaches.

Yet effective pest management is not the responsibility of farmers alone – nor does it begin in the field. Behind every farmer dealing with a crop pest is a scientist who has supported them by developing better seeds, crop protection methods and scouting apps to identify weeds.

Using either conventional breeding or genetic modification, scientists can develop seeds that produce pest-resistant crops, for example.

CGIAR researchers from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) developed and released a modified cassava variety in Colombia, bred to be resistant against high whitefly, which outperformed regional varieties without the need for pesticides.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has also developed maize varieties resistant to the stem borer insect for use in West and Central Africa.

And last year, the Nigerian Biosafety Management Agency approved the commercial release of genetically modified cowpea to farmers – a variety resistant to the maruca pod borer, a type of insect.

Better seeds and crop protection products are vital – but we need to do still more.

Some biocontrol pesticides such as Green Muscle and Novacrid have been highly effective in the past if used against locust hopper bands before they congregate into swarms. But they have limited impact once the swarms start to move as well as limited availability and regulatory approval, and a relatively short shelf-life.

Further research into crop protection methods will pave the way for new chemical and biological solutions, which can keep pest outbreaks under control – or prevent them altogether.

But we also need closer collaboration with governments, research institutions, universities, donors and investors, and – crucially – farmers to address the challenges of pest infestations, and lessen their impact on food systems.

Collaboration is central to IITA’s Biorisk Management Facility (BIMAF), a partnership established around the need for better coordination between researchers, civil society, farming communities, and non-governmental, public and private organisations.

There is no single, superior way to fight and control agricultural pests like the desert locust – battling them on all fronts is our best hope. Of course, prevention is the ultimate goal, and it is achievable. But stopping an outbreak in its tracks requires a huge amount of coordination and sustained financial support.

We must work together to develop new crop protection methods and get them into the hands of those who need them the most. The current locust outbreak – and future pest infestations – will only be defeated with a united front.